Eamon looked at me over Annie’s blond head. I could see him trying to decide how to answer. Or maybe deciding if he would answer at all. It was the same look he’d had a few minutes ago.
He passed me, going into the kitchen and taking an apple from the bowl on the shelf. “Why don’t you go say good morning to Callie?” His deep voice softened, his mouth pressing into Annie’s hair as he placed it into her hands.
Her fingers closed around it, and he set her down, her nightgown swaying around her skinny legs. Then she was pushing out the back door, letting the screen slap behind her.
He watched her go. “It’s not important. He just has some questions.”
“About what?”
Eamon hesitated, and my eyes narrowed on him. He was sifting information, deciding exactly what to say.
“Not long before you left, something happened.” His hands slid into his pockets. “He’s interviewed everyone in town about it as part of his investigation, and now he wants to talk to you.”
Slowly, the pieces strung together in my mind. “The murder,” I said.
Eamon hesitated just enough for me to notice. “Yes.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Nothing. He’s the sheriff, June. It’s his job. That’s all.”
That definitely wasn’t all. Eamon didn’t want me talking to him, and I supposed the fact that I didn’t actually remember anything was the reason. If I was questioned about the murder, I’d have no clue what to say. But that didn’t explain why those newspaper clippings and a photograph of Nathaniel Rutherford were hidden in the bedroom or why Eamon had gone white when he saw that police car outside.
This was what Esther was talking about when she said I’d come at a complicated time.
Eamon glanced out the window again, jaw ticking. Down by the barn, Annie’s small frame was clinging to the fence of the paddock. The mare was sniffing her tangle of blond hair, and Annie’s hand was hooked around her snout as if the horse were a puppy.
The sheriff had shaken him, that was clear. There’d been no mistaking that panic in his eyes before he opened the door. I could still feel the place on my skin where he’d touched me, the way his fingers had slid down my arm and squeezed. He’d been afraid in that moment. For me, or for him, I didn’t know. But Eamon had something to hide.
Sixteen
I’d abandoned all hope of waking up.
I tore into the weeds, ripping them up from the soft earth one fistful at a time. The overgrown vines hid me from view as I worked, clearing another section of the garden inch by stubborn inch.
Eamon had left for Esther’s as soon as Margaret arrived, and I’d caught her watching me out the window more than once. Even now, decades before I’d know her, she couldn’t hide that concern on her face.
I’d known for days that this wasn’t a dream, but that morning had been the first time I’d felt like what I was doing here was actually dangerous. Nathaniel Rutherford’s murder happened only a couple of weeks before I left, the same day as the Midsummer Faire. I hadn’t put that part of the timeline together before and judging by Eamon’s reaction in the kitchen that morning, I had to question whether it was a coincidence.
What would have happened if I’d been questioned by the sheriff, unable to account for anything he knew to be true about me? Jasper was the kind of town where you couldn’t hide things. It was too easy to unearth them when you knew so much about everyone. And people talked. You could always count on that.
I’d walked the edge of the field for more than an hour after Eamon left the house, scouring the horizon for any sign of the door. I counted back to the time I’d seen it in the churchyard and then tried to remember the time before that. I needed a pattern. A sequence that I could dissect in order to make some kind of prediction. But if recording my episodes had taught me anything, it was that they seemed to be completely random.
The locket watch around my neck was growing heavier by the day, a tightening noose that felt more and more like a ticking clock. Esther had been sure that the door would reappear, and Eamon was sure that the last time I’d left, I’d walked through it. That I’d gone back home, to my time, where Birdie, the house on Bishop Street, and Mason waited.
Every time I thought about Mason, my heart twisted inside my chest. He’d be frantic by now, doing whatever he could to find me. If it had come out that I’d been going to see Dr. Jennings, the sheriff would likely determine that I was unwell, and that my condition was linked to my disappearance. They would draw connections between me and Susanna even before I was officially designated as a missing person. My name, description, and photo would be sent to neighboring counties, but I knew what most people would say. That what had happened to my mother had happened to me. That the madness was to blame.
I raked my hands through the soil, sweat trailing down the center of my back as I kneeled in the garden. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky or even a hint of a breeze, making my hair stick to my face and neck. I didn’t care, digging until the muscles in my arms were weak. I ignored the ache in my hands and the beginnings of a sunburn cresting my cheeks. The inside of my head was a maze, one I couldn’t find my way out of. And the more I tried to escape, the more lost I was becoming.
My hands stilled around a newly unearthed tomato plant when I felt the soft whisper of someone’s gaze on me. I looked over my shoulder to see Annie watching from the makeshift fence. Her small hands were curled around the wood planks, her brown eyes blinking at me over the top of the railing.
I pulled off my gloves, wiping my damp forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. “Hi.” There was that pathetic word again.
She waited a moment before she came through the gate. Eamon had gotten her dressed in a little green jumper and white collared shirt that made her blond hair look even paler. She didn’t look wary of me, exactly, but she was definitely curious. Her gaze roamed over the half-cleared garden before finding me.
We stared at each other, and that feeling woke in me again—like the tug of the river pulling me downstream. A tide of memories was there, dammed in my mind by something I couldn’t see. It was too far out of reach.
I waited her to come closer, but her feet didn’t move. I looked around until I spotted a golden cherry tomato hiding in the leaves. I fished it out, plucking it from the vine and holding it out to her. It was warm, the ripened flesh soft between my fingers, and her eyes brightened before she finally stepped forward. Carefully, she took it from me. Then she turned the tomato around, inspecting it, before she popped it into her mouth.
A smile broke on my lips. She settled down on the ground beside me, sinking her knees into the sun-warmed soil, feet tucked beneath her bottom. The edge of her skirt touched my leg, and I felt myself lean toward her. We were only inches apart.